


The Homestretch

by Byrcca



Series: Little Trip to Heaven [6]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s07e20 Author Author, F/M, Pregnancy, Self-isolation fic dump, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23620138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: Remember when video chatting with friends and family was new and exciting? That little swell of delight at receiving a ping, the anticipation before opening the app. The crew ofVoyagerknows, thanks to the Mutara Array. Alas, the news isn’t always good. Not that it’sbadexactly. But sometimes, you just don’t want to do what you’re told.
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Series: Little Trip to Heaven [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/985971
Comments: 24
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeemaG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeemaG/gifts).



> For SeemaG. She knows why. No, it’s not the reason you’re all thinking. I started this in September 2019, so it’s only been hanging around my wip folder for six months. A veritable babe. 
> 
> My thanks to Tortitudette for being a sounding board and enabling me to finish this, and for the super fast beta.

B’Elanna reached past the tray of isolinear chips aiming for a bundle of tubing, and missed. Her arm had knocked into something soft and warm that interrupted her reach; she was a good five centimetres short of her goal. She was seated on the floor of a Jefferies tube, legs splayed, knees bent, pelvic floor pressed to the grillwork. She had one hand on the housing framework for balance, the other reached inside the open conduit. With only a couple more months to go, they were in the homestretch of her pregnancy, and the curve of her rapidly expanding belly bumped the floor as she leaned forward. The slight stretch actually felt pretty good, and helped to take the pressure off of her sciatic nerve. She straightened, and took a slow, only slightly constricted, breath. 

It wasn’t so much that her belly prevented her from bending (though it did), it was that she wasn’t as… agile as she used to be. As flexible. Well, her joints still moved, it’s just that other parts of her body impeded that movement. Much to Tom’s delight—leg man, my ass, she thought—her breasts had practically exploded out of her brassiere in the last few weeks. Her cleavage was a thing of wonder. Tales would be told of it in the great meeting halls on the _homeworld_. Her breasts were, in a word from her husband’s lexicon, smashing! And they were _in the way_. They impeded her movement. They were a barrier. She wasn’t used to having to twist at the waist (back when she still had one) to reach something. 

She was, ordinarily, small busted and she was fine with that. She’d never had to wear specially constructed undergarments like Seven, or the Delaney sisters. Clothing didn’t bind, and if she wanted to go running, she could do it in her pyjamas. A perfect handful, her breasts had never made her back or shoulders ache, and they were high and firm and didn’t sag. She liked them. Had liked them. 

Unfortunately, they were gone along with her waistline and a restful night’s sleep.

But it wasn’t just her breasts— _love cushions_ , jerk—that were the problem. In a call from Earth last week, the Vice Admiral in charge of Starfleet’s dress code had ordered the captain to institute the new grey-shouldered, coloured turtleneck-shirt version of the uniform. Replicating several new jackets and shirts and jumpsuits for the entire crew didn’t seem like the most prudent allocation of the ship’s energy reserves to B’Elanna, but you couldn’t argue with the brass. Really, try as you might, you couldn’t. That was part of the whole ‘military service’ thing: you’re given an order, you obey it. Unquestioningly. And really, if the rest of the ‘fleet was sporting the new ‘rags’, they should too, B’Elanna supposed. If everyone just wore whatever version they wished, they wouldn’t exactly be _uniform_. Which was the whole damn point. 

At least the bloody thing came with the choice of jumpsuit (forget it, that ship had long ago sailed) or jacket and trousers. The idea that she could still fit into the more rugged tactical one-piece was laughable. It pulled in all the wrong places, gaped in others, ran up her— 

Well. That didn’t matter. The jumpsuit wasn’t the issue. B’Elanna had chosen the two-piece. 

The outer uniform design was roughly unchanged, it was the shirt that was the problem. Those damn shirts. She’d had twenty-nine people complain about the shirts in three days! And Tom had let slip that half of his staff had grumbled about them and all they did on their shifts was sit. The collars were stiff and the shoulders fit funny under the uniform jacket, bunching up under the arms. The fabric was thicker, and didn’t have the same ‘stretch’ as their old, gray shirts. The sleeves separated just below the elbow, sometimes coming apart and gaping for no reason. Why!?!? Why not just issue a short-sleeved version? Not to mention the colours, which were _off_. Tom’s command red made him look florid, like he had a fever, and the mustard yellow made both her and Harry look sallow. She looked bad enough as it was, now that her aching back interfered with her sleep, and the weight of the baby pressed on her bladder, making her need to get up to pee five times a night. 

The blue was a nice shade, she conceded, and brought out the colour of Sam Wildman’s eyes. And Jenny and Meg Delaney positively glowed… 

B’Elanna frowned. As if any of them needed the boost to look even more attractive. Sam had looked radiant, pregnant. She had that whole ‘natural earth-mother’ thing going for her. B’Elanna just looked tired. And bloated. And the damn shirt didn’t help. 

Sure, the shirts were easier to get into and out of with the fastener up the front instead of the back. But that didn’t leave much opportunity for _give_. In fact, the fastener felt more like a constrictive band of durasteel stretched along her belly. She had ‘popped’ according to Tom. One day, she looked like she’d had too many burritos for dinner, the next she obviously, visibly, had a ‘bun in the oven’. But worse than her suddenly bloated belly and swollen breasts, her navel had abruptly, according to her husband, become an ‘outie’. 

She’d prided herself on her attractive navel: not too deep, not lopsided, not off-centre. It was (used to be, also according to Tom) the perfect size to hold just the right amount of salt if you were eating celery. Or sugar if you were eating rhubarb. Or chocolate sauce when they were feeling a little frisky… Not that she’d felt overly _frisky_ since her breasts had doubled in size and started to ache constantly. 

And it wasn’t just how her navel looked that bugged her: it chafed. Even through her undershirt, the unforgiving band that ran up the length of the new uniform shirts rubbed against her tender skin. It hurt, and she was sick of having her skin rubbed raw by the friction she generated by being in constant motion all day. She’d gone to the doctor to complain, and he’d given her a scornful look: lips pursed, nose pinched, eyebrow raised. 

“Lieutenant, I thought you understood that pregnancy comes with changes to your body. You can’t expect to grow a baby without making a little room in there.” He looked pointedly at her protruding belly. 

“Yes, Doctor,” she’d answered, “I’m fully aware that I’m going to be as big as shuttlecraft before this is over, but it hurts. It rubs. I’m in pain. Isn’t there something you can do?”

“Well,” he sniffed, “I can, of course, perform corrective surgery on you after you’ve recovered from the birth, if you still feel it’s _necessary_ ,” he stressed the word, “but you can’t expect to have the same silhouette that you enjoyed as a teenager after you have a baby. You're not exactly going to bounce back just like that.” He snapped his fingers, a little too close to her nose for her liking. “Female bodies are prone to storing fat in—” 

“Female _Klingon_ bodies have no problem with pregnancy or getting rid of the weight afterward,” she snapped back (with her tongue, not her fingers). Tom had been doing his prescribed reading and couldn’t be dissuaded from passing on the more, in his opinion, salient passages. According to him, Klingon women were ‘bred for giving birth’. That was when he’d made the ‘bun in the oven’ joke. He’d laughed at his own pun, but she hadn’t found it very amusing. The fact that she hadn’t found it amusing had appeared to compound his joy in his own questionable wit, and he’d snickered and snorted until he’d had tears in his eyes. 

It had crossed her mind to make him _really_ cry… 

“Discounting surgery for now, you can try a bandage to protect your skin from chafing. Or you could try modifying your behaviour and leave crawling through the Jefferies tubes to the members of your staff who aren’t pregnant.” His _sotto voiced_ “surprised you can still fit” made her eyes narrow.

“A bandage?” she repeated, wondering if he was considering prescribing a kiss on her boo boo, too. 

“Or requisitioning a larger uniform. I can certainly do that for you.”

“I don’t need a larger uniform. I just need one with more… stretch,” she gritted.

“Hmmm…”

B’Elanna felt a flare of her old temper, the one from her teens. And twenties. It was tempting to make _him_ require a larger uniform. A little holomatrix adjustment here, another there, and he’d know exactly what she was complaining about! She’d like to see him with an outie the size of the forward phaser array!

He was fiddling with the sickbay replicator, and he turned abruptly and offered her a small jar with a silver lid. “Here. Try rubbing a small amount of this on the affected area as often as needed. It should help.” 

…she left sickbay with a small jar of topical ointment and a growing resentment. 

***

Tom found her seated at the desk in their quarters, working on the computer. “What are you writing?” She usually wrote her reports on a PADD, stretched out on the couch with a hot drink in her hand, her attempt to unwind after a long day. 

“A formal complaint.” 

She sounded decisive, fed up. Tom raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “What did I do?” He held his expression of faux-trepidation for a few beats before he sent her a smile. She sighed. 

“It’s about those damn shirts!” 

He noticed that she had changed into her red lounging pyjamas. Lately, since she’d ‘popped’, she had started doing that: changing as soon as she walked in the door after her shift ended. There was a time when he’d stayed in his uniform after shift, not bothering to change until he was readying for bed, but now he usually shrugged out of his jacket before the doors to their quarters had closed. The shoulders were more padded than the old black and red one, and he found it constricted his arm movement. Or maybe that was the bulky shirt underneath. In either case, he pulled the fastener on the jacket and slipped it off and draped it over the back of a dining chair on his way to the desk. He leaned down to give B’Elanna a kiss, and she wrinkled her nose and backed away. 

She gave a little cough.

“Sorry,” he said, straightening. “I was reviewing emergency maneuvers with my staff in the holodeck all day. Sometimes it seems a little too real.” 

He moved to the refresher and stripped off his shirt and undershirt and shoved them in, then crossed back to the dining area and grabbed his jacket, too. “Join me?” he asked, pointing toward the bathroom. 

“I think I’ll give you a five minute headstart first,” she smiled. 

He knew he stank by the end of the day; it was the damn uniform shirts. They made him, and everyone else, apparently, sweat like a…targ. He’d walk onto the bridge at the beginning of his shift yesterday, and the fug of stale, salty sweat hit him like walking into a wall. _Voyager’s_ air exchange system simply couldn’t keep up. Something needed to be done. If not for that damned Mutara Array and regular contact from home, they’d still be in their old, comfortable uniforms. 

Tom stepped into the shower and let the sonic waves do their job. He watched a swirl of sweat and grime as it was lifted from his body and sucked into the exhaust vent. It was fascinating, if disgusting. B’Elanna had been hesitant at first, but had eventually given in to his cajoling and started to share a shower with him, more for fun than to conserve ship’s energy. He’d thought she was just shy, and found it adorable that she was a decidedly not-shy sexual adventurer in the bedroom (or the couch or on the living room floor) but balked at getting naked together in the bathroom. Then they’d had to duck and dodge swirls of… matter, and he’d understood the reason for her initial trepidation. 

He turned when he heard B’Elanna enter the bathroom, and watched as she brushed her hair at the mirror. He loved her new roundness. Her new softness. Her _fullness_. He thought she was amazing. 

He loved a few other things about her, too: her brains, her beauty, her brand new… well. You couldn’t blame a guy, really. And soon, her magnificent breasts would nourish their baby. He found the idea sexy as hell! 

She was wearing a blue, ‘fleet issued terry bathrobe that was straining to cover her rapidly expanding self. In another month, the edges wouldn’t meet in the middle, which would be fine with him. He couldn’t remember who had started the conversational segue (though he suspected it was him, not Harry), but she had admitted to them early in their friendship that walking around naked in her quarters had lost its appeal the day that _Voyager_ had been twisted and pulled out of shape, and she had accidentally walked in on a half-naked Ensign Nozawa while looking for the room that housed the pattern buffers. He’d been with her, and had delighted in her hastily concealed embarrassment. 

Up until then, he hadn’t thought about what she would look like without her clothes on; he’d liked his women softer, sweeter. Less able to kill him with one, well placed punch. After then, he couldn’t get the image of a naked B’Elanna Torres out of his head. It had taken a long time for him to sit across from her in the briefing room and not picture her in her… briefs. 

She placed her brush on the counter, then slipped out of her robe and hung it on a hook. The time when she could bend down and pluck a discarded piece of clothing from the floor was long passed… Okay, she could get down, she just couldn’t get up again without assistance. 

She stepped in front of him then turned so her back slid against his chest, and tilted her neck to rest the back of her head on his shoulder. She stood directly in front of one of the sonic jets and the waves of warm air swirled against her skin and lifted a fine layer of dried sweat and oil, and pulled it toward the vents. He caressed her hips, then wrapped one arm around her chest just above those miraculous breasts. The other, he slid between them to the lowest point of her spine. He shifted sideways just a smidge, then started to move his hand in a slow, circular motion, applying a firm, steady pressure to her lower back. 

Her breath left her lungs in a guttural moan.

“Mmuuggghhh...fflll..ice.” 

Tom’s mouth twitched. “What was that?” 

“I said,” she sighed, “that feels nice.” 

It did, he agreed. There was something about her pregnant body that brought back all the barely leashed lust that he’d felt at the beginning of their relationship. He couldn’t stop looking at her, appreciating her new softness and curvy silhouette. Her skin was like velvet. She glowed. Any chance to put his hands on her, he took. He felt like he was on a second honeymoon, and they’d been married less than a year. Now that was a thought: they should get away for a little while, just the two of them, before the baby came.

He continued to rub along the base of her spine, mulling the holodeck versus another long weekend in the ‘flyer. His hand slowly travelled south to her sweetly-rounded bottom. The holodeck, definitely. The hand that had been gripping her shoulder dipped downward and brushed over her erect nipple. She moaned again, and made a little backward wiggling motion that had nothing to do with stretching her cramping back muscles. That lovely round bottom nestled against a part of him that was somewhat straighter and more rigid.

Tom’s smile stretched wider. He nuzzled her hair, and dropped soft kisses on her temple, then he scraped his chin along her cheekbone so his evening stubble scratched her sensitive skin. He felt her tense slightly, and her fingernails dug into his wrist. He gripped her more firmly, then slid his palms over her swollen belly and pulled her flush against him. She tensed, and the sound that escaped her lips sounded more like a hiss than a moan of pleasure. He instantly let go of her. 

“What?! Is the baby okay?” His rapidly rising libido was gut-punched by a sudden wave of fear. She had released his wrist and was covering her belly with a protective hand. 

“No. Yes. The baby is fine. She’s not kicking me, for once.” 

Tom shifted and turned her to face him, and studied her pinched expression. “Then what is it?” He was still sparking with residual anxiety. 

“It’s just tender,” she said. 

“What’s tender?” His brain was rapidly sorting through various pieces of her anatomy that could or should be tender (or not!) at this stage in her pregnancy, and what each twinge might mean in a worst case scenario. 

“My navel.” 

Not what he’d expected to hear. “Let me see,” he said. He squatted and peered at her bellybutton--no longer the sexiest innie he’d ever seen but adorable nonetheless--and resisted the urge to touch her. The skin was red and slightly swollen, definitely angry-looking. Could it be a rash? 

“Is it itchy? Have you been scratching?” he asked.

“No,” she sighed. The air seeped out of her lungs just short of a whine. “It’s that damn uniform shirt! The stupid front closure rubs against my stomach. It’s rubbing my skin raw!” 

It was, he could see. He tilted his head upward and looked her in the eyes. “Did you go to the Doc and tell him?” Odds were that she hadn’t. 

“Yes.” She sounded smug. “He healed it and gave me a jar of salve. He said I should try wearing a looser uniform.” 

Her words were sharp, and she sounded affronted at the very idea. Secretly, Tom agreed with the Doctor. She’d replicated a larger uniform than the size she normally wore, but she was kicking at the idea of downloading the specs for the maternity version. Size medium wasn’t cutting it. He gave her figure an appraising, appreciative glance; he suspected that size large wouldn’t either. Tom may have only been married for a few months, but he’d been with B’Elanna long enough to know that he should probably keep that opinion to himself. 

He brushed his fingertips over the roughened skin, and she flinched in anticipated pain. “Want me to kiss it better?” he asked.

One corner of her mouth lifted in a little smile. “Yes.” 

He did. He pressed his lips softly, cautiously, to her belly, salving the irritated skin with his tongue. “Better?” he asked. He was having a hard time holding back his own grin. 

She wiggled a little. “No,” she said simply. 

He felt the sharp sting of her fingers tightening in his hair. A good pilot anticipated any bumps in his flightpath and was ready to respond immediately to any necessary change in trajectory. And a good officer responded to orders unquestioningly, even if they weren’t spoken aloud. He kissed her navel again, then tilted his head and kissed down the dark line that ran from it to her pubic hair. She widened her stance, and her moan was unmistakable. 

They spent far longer in the shower than they normally would, and didn’t spare a thought for the power that they were wasting. 

******


	2. Chapter 2

Kathryn Janeway twitched and rolled a shoulder up and down, squinching her neck until the point of her shoulder almost brushed her ear. It didn’t help. She reached behind her and dug her fingernails into her back and scratched. A little better, but it was like trying to scratch an itch through an EVA suit. She released a sigh and stepped to the wall of the turbolift, pressing her shoulder into the upholstery. She dragged her body from side to side like a bear against a tree trunk. It wasn’t enough. She was contemplating stripping off the damn jacket when the turbolift stopped and the doors parted, beckoning her onto deck two. She complied. 

She straightened and stepped off the lift, nodding politely to Ensign Parsons and Crewman Foster as they stood aside and allowed her to pass before they entered. She turned left and headed down the corridor toward the messhall, her back straight and her shoulders only twitching slightly. A new itch assailed her as she walked, and she snaked a hand up under her armpit and dug her fingernails into the thick cloth of the uniform jacket. Nothing. She grasped a wrinkle of fabric and pulled it ruthlessly back and forth across her skin several times. Better.

Ayala and Andrews rounded a corner and she quickly raised her hand to her hair and patted it in place while nodding a good morning. “Gentlemen,” she murmured. 

The mess doors parted with a soft whoosh. The sound of animated chatter rolled over her, but it was the smell that stopped her in her tracks. Heady. Salty. Thick. She stifled a cough. 

“Ahh, Captain! Hello! I missed you at breakfast.” Neelix smiled widely and beckoned her toward the serving counter. 

“Yes, well, I had…” an aversion to breakfast. “Reports to go over with Commander Chakotay.” And replicator rations. 

“You look…” His eyes skittered from her face to her throat to her arm, and back to her face. “Well, it is certainly a glorious day,” he enthused. His eyes jumped to the viewports at the back of the room, and Kathryn noted the stars streaking by at warp and the blackness of space beyond. “And I think it’s going to be a wonderful afternoon!”

“I certainly hope so,” she agreed. Her nose was starting to get used to the overlying odor in the room, and Kathryn peered past Neelix’ shoulder to the cooking pots shuddering on the kitchen burners, and the steam rising in a wispy cloud toward the ceiling. “What have you created for lunch today?” she asked. Her cup of broth this morning hadn’t quite filled her up, hence her appearance in the messhall.

He followed her line of sight and shook his head. “A cold buffet, I’m afraid.” He gestured to the various plates of fruit and dried things on the counter. “That’s the Ratamba stew, for dinner. It has to simmer all day to bring out it’s flavour. It’s Bajoran Night.” Raising up on his toes, he puffed out his chest and swayed toward her just slightly. “I am glad to see you, though, Captain. I had an idea that I thought I should run by you.” 

“I’m all ears.” She rather wished she _was_ , and didn’t have a nose… 

“I was thinking it would be a nice tribute to the Alpha Quadrant, now that we’re in regular contact, to honour every species in the Federation, starting with the Andorians, even though we don’t have any on the crew. They were a founding member of the Federation, you know.”

He looked delighted with his plan, and Kathryn couldn’t help but smile in spite of her trepidation. “Yes. I know,” she said. “That’s a lovely idea. When are you planning on starting?” At least it would keep him busy. 

“I thought next week. It will give me time to experiment with a few dishes.” 

“That sounds perfect.” Kathryn pulled her shoulder back, lowered it, raised it again. The damned itch was back. “Ratamba stew, you said?” 

Neelix glanced at the pots, then looked back at her and nodded. 

“It’s a little… pungent,” she observed, her nose wrinkling on the word.

“Oh? Oh! The smell. That’s not the stew.” He leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “That’s the crew. I think there may be something wrong with the air exchange system. I’ve put in a call to engineering but B’Elanna hasn’t gotten back to me about it yet.” 

“I’m sure she’s on it,” Kathryn assured him. 

“I hope so. I’m afraid it may be putting people off their lunch.” 

He looked at the array of dishes on the counter, his brows drawing together in a worried frown. Kathryn looked, too. She suspected it wasn’t the smell that hung in the room that was putting them off. Neelix picked up a plate and placed a couple of spherical purple things on it, and a flattened disk of something yellow. He added a _splop_ of some green leafy vegetable that looked like it had been boiled to within a degree of its cellular adhesion, then pushed the plate and a fork into her hand. 

“Maybe if they see you enjoying your lunch, they’ll have some, too,” he posited. “Can I get you some coffee to go with it?” he asked. 

In for a penny… Kathryn smiled her acceptance. “That would be…” disgusting? imprudent? downright foolhardy? “...lovely, Neelix. Thank you.” Half of the job description was knowing when and how to use diplomacy. And as Neelix had told her in their first week in the Delta Quadrant, it was up to her to set the example…

She started to turn toward the mess tables when a hand landed on her shoulder. 

“Captain.” Chakotay raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “If you have a moment…?” A padd was in his hand, and he lifted it and gave it a waggle so it caught her attention. 

“Something we missed this morning?” she asked. He looked flushed, his complexion ruddy. Was he angry? Or had he run from his office to meet her here? She took the coffee mug from an obviously intrigued Neelix, and motioned toward a table in the back of the room, near the viewport. 

“Lunch, Commander?” Neelix asked, hope obvious in his tone of voice. 

Chakotay shot a glance at the spread on the counter. “Not right now, Neelix, thanks.” 

He gestured for Kathryn to precede him and fell into step behind her. She placed her tray on the table and slid into her chair with the viewport to her back so she could survey the room. “What’s this about?” she asked, her eyes going to the padd. 

Chakotay handed it to her as he sat, then tugged on his uniform jacket, straightening it. The gesture pulled her eyes toward his upper chest where the front closure of his uniform shirt had bunched up and protruded, giving his sternum the appearance of a bird’s rounded chest. 

“Normally I would handle this myself, but…” 

Her eyes jerked back up to his face. Kathryn’s eyebrow rose as she accepted the padd and thumbed it on. It wasn’t like Chakotay to be cagey, he usually came right to the point. A list of documents appeared on the screen, sorted alphabetically by the names of the authors; she noticed former Maquis and Starfleet, alike, including the name of her chief engineer. She scrolled for several pages before raising her eyes back to Chakotay. “What’s this?” 

“Formal complaints about the new uniforms.” 

His hand went to the collar of his red turtleneck and tugged. It looked like an unconscious gesture. Kathryn’s shoulders pulled backward in response. Her itch was back. She sighed. “I agree that they’re not as comfortable as our old ones, but they’re regulation. Really, I’m surprised we weren’t issued the orders when the Doctor made contact with…” 

She hesitated over the name of the ship where they’d sent the Doctor’s holographic datastream three years ago through an ancient sensor relay network used by the Hirogen. The _Prometheus_ , a state of the art, experimental prototype, had been commandeered by the Romulans, and the Doctor, along with that ship’s EMH, had retaken control of the ship. The Doctor had been able to contact Starfleet and assure them that the crew of _Voyager_ was alive, but lost, in the Delta Quadrant. 

“...Starfleet,” she supplied. “Or when we received those letters from home.”

“Yes. We managed to dodge that one for a long time,” Chakotay agreed. He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Kathryn, they’re not wrong. They’re uncomfortable, hot, itchy.”

“And we’re under orders to wear them.” Janeway sighed. “Look, it’s not like I don’t sympathise, but we agreed a long time ago that this would be a Starfleet ship, and our people a Starfleet crew. Part of that is wearing the uniform. We can’t pick and choose which orders we follow, you know that.” 

“I do. And so do they.” 

Her gaze flicked to the padd again. “But they’re not happy about it.”

“Are you?” 

She saw a twinkle in his eyes, and a hint of dimples as his mouth quirked in a slight smile. She drew in a deep breath and regretted it immediately. “How about this,” she proposed, “if you can find a way around the new uniforms, I’ll back you.” 

“If there is one,” he assured her, “I’ll find it.”

*****

“ _Paris to Torres._ ” 

Tom’s voice was loud in the silence of her office, and B’Elanna reached automatically toward her chest and gave her combadge a tap. “Hi,” she answered.

There was a slight pause, then, “ _Hi, yourself. Are you involved in something?_ ” 

She scrolled through the display on her computer terminal, her eyes quickly registering, then discounting, the entries on a list. “Umm, yeah. Why?” 

“ _Because your shift ended twenty minutes ago. Dinner’s almost ready._ ”

Since they’d married seven months ago Tom had taken an avid interest in pampering her. He tidied their quarters, and fussed with the furniture placement, and made sure she always had a clean uniform. He’d spent less time fooling around with Harry in the holodeck, and more of his off-time with her either watching something silly on the television, or just sitting on the couch reading a book with her feet in his lap. It was like he was making up for all the times he’d been preoccupied with anything but her while they were still dating. And since they’d discovered that she was pregnant, his main off-duty occupation had been feeding her. And badgering her about the long hours she worked. 

She smiled. “What’s on the menu tonight?”

“ _A surprise. Come home and find out._ ” 

Her smile widened. New technology they’d picked up from a Delta Quadrant race while they’d been stuck in that Void a few months ago had tripled their replicator output (though some people still managed to run out of rations). That, combined with the extra rations that B’Elanna had been given because of her pregnancy, meant that they could eat almost every meal in their quarters and not have to risk Neelix’ inventions. 

“Give me ten minutes,” she said. “Ahh… There you are.” She jabbed at the screen and a window enlarged, displaying a uniform variation along with its specifications. 

“ _Found what you were looking for?_ ” 

Tom again. She’d forgotten to close the comlink. “Yes. Ten minutes, okay?”

“ _I’m holding you to that. Any later and I’ll beam you here. Tom, out._ ” 

The link closed and she snorted. He would, too. He had no compunctions about using the ship’s transporters as his own, personal conveyance when it suited him. Well, to be fair, she had used it once or twice, herself. She brought her attention back to the computer screen and tapped a series of commands, then smiled. An override command here, a little backtracking there… the file disappeared, along with its backup. She quickly reconfigured the list and the data display so it didn’t show any gaps. Easy-peasy, to quote Naomi Wilder. 

She stood and put her hands on her lower back, and bent backward in a stretch. Her belly protruded. She groaned, then hissed as the hard line of the shirt’s fastener scraped against her tender navel. She quickly straightened and frowned, and double-tapped her combadge, then lowered her hand to her belly and rubbed. “B’Elanna to Tom. I’m on my way.” 

“ _I’ll light the candles. No detours,_ ” he warned.

“I won’t,” she promised. “I can’t wait to get out of this uniform.” Her smile turned into a grin as the doors of engineering closed behind her and she turned toward the ‘lift.

******


	3. Chapter 3

Tom caught the slice of toast as it popped up out of the slot in his toaster. It was hot enough to burn his fingertips, and he dropped it onto a plate that he’d placed on the table for just that purpose. He dug a large knife-full of peanut butter (smooth) out of the jar and smeared it over the bread, then cut it into four long ‘fingers’ and placed it on the table beside a glass of orange juice. He spread an equal amount of peanut butter onto the other piece of toast but chose expediency over neatness, ignoring the second plate and any pretense at culinary art, and instead took a big bite from the corner of the slice of bread. The melting peanut butter coated his teeth and tongue, and he chewed studiously for a few moments before he reached for a cup of real (replicated) coffee to wash it down. 

“Hon—” His call was cut off by the arrival of the love of his life, fresh from her morning shower and dressed for another full day as the ship’s chief engineer. Sort of dressed. Tom squinted and stared at her. He would have commented, but his mouth was glued shut from his second and third bites of peanut butter toast, so he raised an eyebrow instead. 

“What?” she asked. 

She sat and thumbed on the padd she had in her hand, and took a sip of juice. He watched as she lifted a toast finger from her plate and nibbled on it, and studiously avoided looking at him. 

He forced the gloopy masticated mess down his throat and squinted at her. “I didn’t know the new uniforms had an engineer’s smock,” he said. 

“Of course.” She patted the grey, quilted pocket above her left breast. “It makes it easier to carry my favourite hyperspanner.” She glanced at him and smiled. “Keeps my hands free.” 

And frees her rapidly expanding belly, he thought, glancing at said belly currently protruding from between the unfastened black edges of the smock. He warmed at the thought of their baby girl, asleep in B’Elanna’s womb. She should be asleep, anyway, he thought, since she’d kept them up for a good long time last night doing backflips while she tried to kick her way to freedom. It seemed as soon as B’Elanna settled down and tried to sleep, their daughter woke up. He hoped that trend wouldn’t carry over to when she finally made an appearance. He suspected they’d need all the sleep they could get. 

He noticed that he was staring at B’Elanna’s belly and realization hit him. He squinted again. “You’re looking a little… blue...ish? (grayish? purpleish?) ...this morning,” he said. “Are you feeling alright? No memory problems or anything?” 

Her eyes lifted from the screen of the padd, her expression pure innocence. “No. I don’t think so. But if I forgot something, how would I know?” She sent him a slight smile and lifted her shoulder in an even slighter shrug. 

He couldn’t help it, he smiled back. “Not that you don’t look gorgeous but what’s with…” He gestured to her chest and belly, waving his toast in the air. 

Another shrug. “The baby’s getting bigger. I couldn’t find one that was roomy enough without the sleeves hanging to my knees. It’s fine.” She stood and took a final swig of juice, draining the glass. 

“But… it’s not regulation. Not quite. You’re out of uniform, Lieutenant.”

She sent him a sultry glance. “Maybe later, after we’re off shift.” 

“Oh no, you are not going to distract me so easily.” Tom stepped around the table, pushing his arms through the sleeves of his uniform jacket as he moved toward her. He had to coax it onto his shoulders, and reach inside the neckline to smooth the bunched up material of his bright red shirt and poke it back down his arms. “What will your staff say when they see you in the old shirt?” 

“What?” She glanced at her belly as if she’d just noticed what she was wearing. “It’s a maternity shirt. The specs were in the replicator database.” She led him out the door and into the corridor.

Another shrug. He knew her well enough to know that a shrug was a sign of guilt. “It’s the wrong colour,” he pressed. They stopped in front of the turbolift and Tom reached across her and pressed the button to call for a car. His elbow knocked her belly gently, and he smiled, allowing his fingers to brush against its swell as he pulled his hand back. 

“I didn’t see the specs for a gold maternity shirt,” she explained.

She had the nerve to look him in the face as she said it. “Ah ha. Really?” 

“There was nothing there when I looked this morning.” 

She stepped into the empty lift, then turned and rose up on her toes and leaned into him for a kiss. The force of her distended stomach pressed directly against his diaphragm knocked the breath from his lungs, and the pressure of her lips on his effectively halted him from making another comment about her choice of dress. 

The ‘lift headed directly for engineering, and Tom took advantage of their being alone to slide his hands over the soft fabric of her shirt and pull her a little closer. He continued to kiss her until they arrived on deck eleven. B’Elanna pulled away and raised a thumb to his mouth, and wiped at a smear of her bright red lipstick. He couldn’t help but grin. 

“I’ll see you at lunch,” she said. And with a little wave, she disappeared through the doors of main engineering. 

The turbolift doors closed while he was still staring after her. He was certain there’d been replicator pattern specs for a maternity uniform in the dispatch from Starfleet Command. There had to be, they were standard issue, along with uniforms specs for Edosions, a tri-pedal species, Kelpians, heck, they even made a slit for a Caitian’s tail! Surely they’d included maternity dress for a humanoid species. The ‘lift stopped at deck two and Harry entered, jarring Tom from his musings. 

“Wha’d you have for breakfast?” Harry asked.

“Huh? Peanut butter, why?” Sometimes Harry was cryptic to a fault. This time he just smirked and tapped his index finger to his upper lip. Tom raised a hand and scrubbed. “Thanks,” he murmured. Harry just grinned. 

******

“Buy you a cup of milk?”

B’Elanna straightened from where she was bent over a console and turned. Chakotay was smiling at her. “It’s the baby who’s supposed to drink the milk,” she said. “But I’ll take a raktajino, if you’re offering.” 

He looked her up and down. “You look nice this morning,” he observed. “Positively glowing.” 

“Thank you.” Her nose wrinkled as she frowned. He was up to something, she just didn’t know what yet. His eyes dipped to her stomach (as most people’s did when they encountered her) and lingered at her neck for a few moments on their way back up to her face. 

“But you’re not quite as _golden_ as you usually are.” 

Who ratted on her? Had one of her staff ratted on her? “Golden?” She feigned innocence. “Oh! My shirt.” A little laugh. “I didn’t have a choice. There isn’t a file for maternity dress.” Her shoulder lifted in the beginning of a shrug, but she aborted the movement and turned it into a stretch instead. She arched her belly toward Chakotay and groaned. “I guess I could use a break,” she said. “I get so cramped now, bent over a console all day.” She patted her belly, for effect.

They entered her office and Chakotay crossed to her replicator and requested a raktajino for her and tea for himself. He placed the mug in front of her and sat, uninvited, on the edge of her desk. She took her chair and was forced to bend her neck to look at him. 

“Are you sure the pattern isn’t there? Maternity dress is standard.” 

“That’s what Tom said.” She spread her hands and shook her head. “You can look for yourself. I guarantee you won’t find it.” She winced then and put a hand to the back of her neck and rubbed. Chakotay had the grace to look chagrined, and quickly shifted to the seat opposite her. 

“It seems like an odd oversight,” he replied. “But it doesn’t matter. I wanted to let you know that I found a workaround. We should be back in our old uniforms by this afternoon.” 

“Really?” Her eyes widened, and she had to remember to close her mouth. “How? We can’t just disobey orders. And it’s a little late to pretend there was too much static to get the message.” 

His eyes twinkled as he took a sip of his tea. “Strictly a Maquis operation.” 

******

Chakotay was wearing a self-satisfied smile as Kathryn walked onto the bridge and took her seat beside him. “You look proud of yourself,” she observed. 

“I may have found that loophole you were looking for,” he replied, a smug grin still in place accenting his dimpled cheeks. 

“Really?” She couldn’t help it, she felt a little thrill of pleasure, and anticipation blossom in her belly. Or it could have been today’s version of coffee that Neelix had plied her with in the mess hall this morning, threatening to come back up. “What is it?” she asked. 

With a quick series of finger taps, Chakotay called up a file on the LCARS display between their chairs. “Subsection 2, paragraph 1 of the Starfleet Uniform Code,” he read, “Starship captains have discretion as to their personal uniform and the uniforms of their bridge crew.”

“Well, yes. That would be fine for us.” She glanced around the bridge at the dozen or so people engrossed in their stations, then looked back at her first officer. Her eyes were caught once again by the bulge of fabric that pushed through the plackets of his uniform jacket. She jerked them back to his face. “But what about the rest of the crew? I don’t think they’d be very happy to see us back in our old uniforms when they have to wear the new ones. Wouldn’t be very good for morale.” 

“I have a solution for that, too,” he said. At her raised eyebrow, he continued. “The Bridge Officer’s Test. We train everyone on the ship to be a bridge officer.” He inclined his chin in an upward nod at Ken Dalby, at one of the engineering stations on the upper deck. “He shouldn’t be on the bridge without his certification, you know that. Dalby, Bendara, Larson, Gennaro, even Seven. None of them have passed the test.”

Seven wasn’t even a provisional Starfleet officer, like the former Maquis. Both she and Neelix were civilian members of _Voyager’s_ crew. Kathryn raised a hand to forestall him before he continued with his list of names. 

“Even B’Elanna only took the test last year, and she’s on the bridge at least once a week.”

“You’re right, but…” But they didn’t have enough certified crew to staff three shifts. So, they’d been lax in bridge assignments. He’d been lax. They both had, she admitted. “Chakotay, that would take months.” To train everyone and administer even the written portions of the test would take… far too long for comfort. Literally. 

“Well, I do have another idea.” 

He looked down at his lap, then back into her eyes. “But I’m not sure you’ll approve.” 

Her eyebrow rose. “Oh?” 

“Maybe we should discuss this in your office,” he suggested. “It’s not a strictly… regulation solution.” 

The smile was back, tugging on the corner of his mouth and highlighting that damn dimple. She narrowed her eyes and peered at him, trying to read what was on his mind, then gave in with a nod. “Follow me,” she said as she stood and headed toward her ready room.

******

“You must hurry, Ensign. The singularity only stays in alignment for eleven minutes each day. If you are late, you will interrupt the comm time of those coming after you.” 

“I can’t find a shirt in my size.” He was crouched, digging through a pile of gold fabric that had slid to the floor of the astrometrics lab. He pulled his grey turtleneck off and dropped it onto the console.

“Here, wear this one.” Seven held out a red shirt toward him.

“Are you kidding? And have my mom think I’m bucking for captain?” Harry Kim was’t the only one who’s mother dreamed of a son in command of a starship. 

“You have thirty seconds before the channel is open.”

Larson shoved his arms through the sleeves of a shirt and expelled a grunt of frustration. The cuffs ended ten centimetres before his wrists. 

“Your shirt sleeves will not be noticeable under the sleeves of the jacket. Twenty seconds.” 

She was right, of course. One good thing about these lousy shirts, they were quick to put on and easy to fasten. It pulled tightly across his chest, but that would be hidden, too. He grabbed a jacket and shrugged it on.

“Your rank pips,” she said. 

“Damn, almost forgot.”

“As does everyone else,” she noted. “Ten seconds.”

He tugged the pips from the grey turtleneck and attached them to the gold collar of the new uniform, then hurriedly kicked the tangle of gold and red and blue fabric behind a console. He straightened and stood in front of the viewscreen, standing up straight and pulling his shoulders back. 

“The signal is coming through now, Ensign.” 

Larson dragged a hand through his hair to tidy it and took a breath. The viewscreen winked to life, showing a middle aged couple and two men in their twenties. His hand jerked toward the screen. 

“ _Bro! You’re alive!_ ” the younger of his two brothers shouted.

He laughed. “And kicking. Le, Beau it’s good to see you guys.” He shifted his gaze to the woman. The signal was so clear that he could see the tears on her cheeks.

“ _Oh, Zach,_ his mother exclaimed. “ _It’s so good to see you, too. How long until you get back to the Alpha Quadrant?_ ”

“Soon, mom,” he answered with a smile. Only thirty thousand more light years to go. “We’re in the homestretch.” 

******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stumbled across this while I was looking for information on those DS9 uniforms and found the note about the captain’s discretion regarding uniforms for the bridge crew. You’ll note the lack of a maternity uniform in the pics.
> 
> http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/startrek/images/0/0f/Starfleet_Uniform_Code_2410_web.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20140719235840


End file.
